In the early Middle Ages many religious leaders
(archbishops, bishops and abbots) were granted, or assumed, the
right to strike their own coinage. Sometimes this was the result of
royal weakness, at other times it was deliberate royal policy. In
Germany the kings and emperors used churchmen to settle and
organise wide territories, encouraging them with land grants and
the right to have mints and markets. As a result, coinages issued
by the church dominated German currency by the late eleventh
century. The bishops and archbishops used their own names on the
coins, and used a wide variety of
designs.

The actual form of
coinage also changed in some areas. The traditional two-sided
pfennigs were replaced
by much thinner but broader ones, with a single design visible in
the positive on the front and in the negative on the back. Such
coins are known as bracteates, from the Latin word
bractea, meaning leaf,
because of their thinness. Because they were larger they could
carry designs of high
quality.

Being thin, the
bracteates were easily damaged, and often had to be replaced in
recoinages. As a result there are a great number of varieties. This
is a typical example of a bracteate-type ecclesiastical coin from
north-eastern Germany. It was issued by Wichmann von Seeburg,
archbishop of Magdeburg (1152-92). The soldier-saint Maurice was
the patron of the see of Magdeburg.